au revoir may

wow, it's the end of may. can you believe it?! now it's time to review the goals i set myself for may:

• finish my statement of purpose - rough draft done!! need to do another draft and finish it once and for all.
  

• study for the gmat (mon-fri at least 2-3 hrs per day) - FAIL!! i studied like one day!
  

• break out the scooter & RIDE!! - YES!! (pics to come)
  

• be a better blogger - post more frequently and leave more comments for my fellow bloggers - LOVE you guys!! - didn't blog when i was on vacay but i tried to make up for it when i got back
  

• exercise everyday (in some way, shape or form) - YES!
  

• start a running program (again!!) - well, i started... ok, i did like one day! i need to (and will) do this again.
  

• go to the farmers market EVERY saturday - i did this every day except for when i was in charleston and i went to the farmer's market there.
  

• spend some time w/ my family - YES and had a great time!
  

• have a sewing rendevouz w/ my mom - YES!! check it out here!
  

• spend as little money as possible (shooting for necessities only) - yes except for when i was in charleston and found my kelly rae roberts print & rescue girl button
  

• garden - YES but it's not finished yet

did you guys meet the goals you set for may? i don't think i did too bad. i think i set too many and that is why i didn't focus on the two most important which was study for the gmat and finish my statement of purpose. those two are a MUST for june!!

wild honeysuckle

wild honeysuckle grows rampant around morgantown. and i am SO happy that it does. it smells absolutely divine!! we dug some up and planted it by our bedroom window in hopes that we will have sweet dreams to the wonderful smell of honeysuckle. ahhhhh!!

dinner pulled together out of thin air

so, the question on every one's mind... what's for dinner tonight?!

since we were really full on our mediterranean deli lunch and gelato dessert we were thinking something simple. we had bought some swiss chard at the farmer's market earlier and i wanted to use it in our dinner. so, then the question became how to incorporate the chard in a simple yet filling dinner. here is the answer... little extra virgin olive oil, 3-4 cloves of garlic (we like garlic in this house), cherry tomatoes, chard and pasta. it was really simple and absolutely delicious!!

still bubbling in the pan

add in pasta

grate on a little parmigiano-reggiano and serve

and for dessert: one of these babies, hot out of the oven!!

photos by moi

tea & biscuits

aahh, tea & biscuits. i love it.

i love the little message on the tea bag

any tea is special tea to me

photos by moi

my tiny orchid

i've had this little orchid for a while now. when i took it to work with me, everyone thought it was fake. i'll admit, it is so pretty that it looks fake. but i love the little guy nonetheless.

here is my little orchid beside the bamboo that my momma got for me.

pet bed

this just solidifies that the pet bed i made (with help of my momma) is a hit!!

family visits

when i was visiting my parents two weeks ago, we stopped over and visited my grandpa. he is in a nursing home.

my grandpa is the only grandparent i have still alive. unfortunately he has alzheimer's disease. when my mom asked if he knew who i was he said no. it's so very sad. it brought me to tears seeing him this way.

he has a huge smile on his face in the picture because my parents just brought him that new chair you see him in. he absolutely loved it!!

my mom is such an amazing lady. she is the most caring individual i know! she makes lap quilts for all of the new residents of the nursing home. she also makes birthday presents for anyone in the nursing home who is having a birthday. she has been doing this for years!! i don't know what i'll ever do without my momma!!

photo by moi

for the love of cantaloupe

rawkus is a strange kitty. he LOVES cantaloupe!! don't believe me... see for yourself :)



see, i told ya!!

photos by moi

writer's block

i had ryan to snap this picture. dooty loves to lay in my lap. this was a mild case of him and laptop on my lap at the same time. sometimes he is more on the laptop. and purring the whole time!

photo by ryan

yoga away from home

when i was in charleston, wv visiting my bff mandy, i (big shocker) went to yoga there too. for three days i went to the folded leaf.

the folded leaf has many styles of yoga to offer from basic hatha to ashtanga, to power vinyasa. the three classes i took were a vinyasa flow and i really enjoyed them.

the folded leaf is in an upper scale shopping area where mandy and i went back later and had a huge strawberry dipped in white chocolate and then dipped again in milk chocolate from holl's swiss choclatier (and man was it good!!). it is also in the same neighborhood where cornucopia is located just across the street. that is where i found my kelly rae roberts print and my cute rescue girl button and magnet.

if i lived in charleston, the folded leaf would definitely be my yoga studio.

on the topic of yoga away from home, i am planning on going to philadelphia june 12, 13, & 14th. so if anyone has any suggestions of good places to do yoga, please let me know. thanks!

gardening

the past few days we have been working on our little side garden. it started out as a strawberry patch but of course we couldn't stop there. we planted our snow peas there, lemon balm, lavender, and more pansies. it is also the home for one of ryan's bonsai trees during the warmer days.

lavender on the left and lemon balm on the right
sorry for the glow around the little white fence, dunno why it is doing that

lemon balm and strawberries

some delicious strawberries calling my name :)

ryan's first bonsai (surrounded by more strawberry plants) that i got him when we first started dating
(that puts the bonsai around 12-13 years old)

we had planned on doing some gardening today but it rained pretty much all day. hopefully tomorrow we can get it done.

photos by moi

pansy love

i love the pop of color that pansies give. here are the ones we have this year:

even strawberries have mohawks

we got this little guy out of our strawberry patch (those pics to come). see, he has a mohawk too!! now here's mine (since i had so much demand for these pics). now you can see how pink hair isn't that crazy for me... :)

exciting finds

of course i did a little shopping while i was in charleston, wv visiting my bff mandy. we went to a little shop called cornucopia. as soon as i walked in the door i saw their display of kelly rae roberts prints. i squealed with glee. one of the workers at the store asked me if knew about kelly rae. i told him that i had been following her blog for some time now. she is extremely talented and i love her work. and i am happy to tell you that i now own a small piece of her work. let me tell you, i had a hard time choosing from the prints that they had too. but i finally decided on this one:


while perusing around cornucopia i saw a rescue girl button that i HAD to have. mandy bought me a present while we were in there too. ironically she got me a rescue girl magnet! she picked it out before i saw the button. what can i say, my girl knows me!! she knew i would love it because she knows how much i love yoga. i went to yoga every day while i was there :)

if you haven't seen amy luwis' rescue girl book then i suggest you add it to your list. it is very helpful and adorable!!

photos by moi

my first ever bikram yoga experience

today my dear, sweet friend lela and i got up at 6 am to go to pittsburgh, pa to go to a bikram yoga class. lela had done bikram and knew what to expect. i did not...

well, i KNEW what to expect. i read up on bikram yoga and knew that it was going to be HOT but i didn't realize it would be THAT HOT!! unfortunately i don't deal well with heat. and temperatures that go from 105-110 degrees is a little too hot for me :(

i regret to say that i didn't make it through the full hour and a half but i did make it through an hour and 10 minutes. at that point i had pushed my boundaries but i had to respect my limit and i knew that i was at my limit. just laying there in the heat didn't seem to help too much at which point i apologized and left the room (before i passed out). i wish i could have made it through the whole class and maybe one day i will.

as much as the heat was torture for me, i am stubborn and will therefore probably try bikram again at another time.

photo by moi

ranunculus

i've noticed recently that there were lots of posting going on about ranunculus. when i saw these blog posts here, here, and here it made me start to wonder if those tiny little yellow flowers that were beside of my grandmother's house (now my parent's house) are actually ranunculus.

while i was visiting my parents earlier this week i snapped a couple of pics of these cute little guys that always remind me of my childhood in hopes of determining if they were actually ranunculus or not. let me know what you think.

sewing rendezvous

one of the things on my may goals list was to have a sewing rendezvous with my momma. my mom is very talented when it comes to sewing. me, i do alright when guided, but it's not exactly my thing.

i took a pair of tranquilit perfect pants to make into capris for the summer. seeing as that i have two pairs of these pants i could do with one pair being shorter especially on these hot summer days . i let my momma take care of doing the work on these as i didn't want to mess them up.

with the guidance of my mom, i made a pet bed for our little petting zoo. we made it with a removable cover so that it can be easily washed. my "first born" brak was there to try it out when we got it finished. he loved it. i told my mom that she was going to have to make him one because he loved it so much.

brak's close up

brak enjoying the bed

cadyn and my mom & dad's dog popcorn were taking their turn on the bed too

as you can see, the pet bed was a big hit all around. since i brought it home at least one of the pets (both cats & dogs) are on it at all times. that makes me feel great since i worked pretty hard on it :)

pink chalkboard with a twist

remember when little brown pen blogged about a pink chalkboard? well, that got me thinking. i would love to have a chalkboard and definitely a pink one!! so i looked & looked, and no pink chalkboards were to be found. however, on an artist's date to michaels much to my joy, i discovered pink chalkboard paint. i also found this cute speech bubble and thought it would make the cutest little chalkboard.


this is just one of the things i got into on my little vacation. more to come...

photo by moi

my two days of bliss

i haven't been online as much in the past two days and for good reason.

yesterday, i had an amazing day. i fought the urge to sleep in and got up at 7:30. after i dropped ryan off at work, i came back home and did my planning for the day. i scheduled a massage for later that evening. i met ryan for lunch. we had bento boxes at our favorite local sushi joint. after dropping him back off at work, i had an solo artist date. i did a little bookstore browsing at the local barnes and noble. after that i hit up tarjay to see what there was to see. i ended up getting a small scrapbook (that was on the dollar rack) to put some of our 2009 traveling mementos in. i then headed to tj maxx. between those three stores i could drop a ton of money, but i was strong. i only ended up buying an accordion folder to put some important papers in and two boxes of english tea.

after getting back home from my artist date, i got ready for yoga and my massage. i met my dear friend for yoga at bliss bliss bliss and afterwords we went for smoothies. after smoothies it was time to head back to bliss bliss bliss for my massage. and let me tell you, it was BLISS! after my wonderful relaxing massage i headed home to a hot bath to soak. had a lovely salad for dinner and some hot tea and then to bed. it was a fabulous day!

today was almost as good. it started very much the same. i dropped ryan off at work and then headed to a local cafe for breakfast. i enjoyed a wonderful lox bagel and some coffee. after breakfast, i went to the beauty college to get something different done to my tresses. i have been admiring people decorating their hair with pink streaks, from kimberly wilson to carolyn to yogadiva. these lovely ladies serve as daily inspiration for me. and what can i say, the pink bug bit me :-) i also decided to get bangs. i haven't had bangs in years!!



pink streaks in my hair isn't exactly daring for me. you are reading the blog of a girl who once had a mohawk. yep, you read that right, a mohawk. and let me tell you, it was a kick ass mohawk too.

photos by ryan

all the english tea i want without jet lag

my dear english friends have been blogging about afternoon tea and biscuits. well, since i can't afford a trip to the england, i figured getting some good english tea would be the next best thing.

photo by moi

my guys

i just had to snap this pic.

aren't they adorable?!














photo by moi

biking our way into summer

yesterday we decided to get off our butts and have a little fun. we went for a bike ride. i would love to have a cutey beach cruiser but the hills of morgantown kick my butt in the lowest gear on my schwinn. and yes, it is a boys bike but i for some reason like them better than girls bikes. ryan bought me my little basket so that i could throw all of my crap in it. and yes, like most girls, i have a lot of crap. :)



photos by moi

and for dessert....

ryan made homemade rice krispies treats. and they are delicious!! ryan used this recipe but of course we made it ours by adding a little bit of chocolate chips. (you hate me now, don't you?!)


photo by moi

bookstore browsing

i spent most of today in bed. you know how it goes sometimes. woke up with a headache, went back to sleep, woke up later with the same headache, went back to sleep, woke up later, yep, headache still there. it wasn't completely debilitating thankfully. after ryan got off of work he swung by the house and picked me up and we went to help an older lady around her house. i usually go to her house at least once a month, sometimes more.

after helping her out, ryan treated me to crab legs at our local seafood restaurant, back bay. we both ordered all you can eat crab legs. it was excellent! after dinner and stuffed with crab we decided to go bookstore browsing. one of my favorite past times. i didn't actually get anything this time (it's true!). although they did have a book that i've been eyeing for sometime now, baron baptiste's 40 days to a personal revolution. anyone have it? if so, what are your thoughts?

i did come across a magazine cover that i absolutely adored. sorry, the glossyness of the magazine really caused some glare in the pic. i love hitchcock's silhouette. i think on of my favorite hitchcock movies was the birds. i remember seeing this when i was younger and was fascinated. do you guys have a favorite hitchcock movie?

photo by moi

sushi for two

hello my fellow sushi lovers. all this talk on twitter this evening by naturally nina and city girl about sushi really got me wanting some. after ryan got home from his bonsai class the usual "what do you want for dinner" "i dunno, what do you want" began. i was of course wanting some sushi! while at dinner i decided to take a few snapshots of what we were having. (sorry that last pic is after we got more than half way through and i realized we forgot to take a pic.)





photos by moi & ryan